Reducing the complexity of distance measurement methods for circular turbo codes that use structured interleavers

SummaryThe knowledge of turbo code's minimum Hamming distance (dmin) and its corresponding codeword multiplicity (Amin) is of a great importance because the error correction capability of a code is strongly tied to the values of dmin and Amin. Unfortunately, the computational complexity associated with the search for dmin and Amin can be very high, especially for a turbo code that has high dmin value. This paper introduces some useful properties of turbo codes that use structured interleavers together with circular encoding. These properties allow for a significant reduction of search space and thus reduce significantly the computational complexity associated with the determination of dmin and Amin values. © 2014 The Authors. International Journal of Communication Systems published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The computational complexity associated with the determination of minimum Hamming distance (dmin) and its corresponding codeword multiplicity can be very high, especially for a turbo code that has high dmin value. This paper introduces some useful properties of turbo codes that use structured interleavers together with circular encoding. These properties allow for a significant reduction of search space and thus reduce significantly the computational complexity associated with the determination of dmin and codeword multiplicity values.